5 killed in Russian building collapse

Five workers have been killed in the collapse of a building that was under construction in the Russian city of Taganrog, and rescuers are searching for others believed to be buried in the rubble.

Marina Abramchenko, a spokeswoman for the Emergency Ministry's office for Russia's southern region, says about nine workers are believed to be under huge chunks of concrete after the Thursday evening collapse of the four-story residential building.

About another dozen have been hospitalized with injuries, news reports said.

The cause of the collapse was not immediately known, but Russia's top investigative body opened a criminal probe into the possibility that safety procedures were violated.

Taganrog is a port city of about 250,000 people on the Azov Sea, some 1,000 kilometers (625 miles) south of Moscow.